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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382405">All The Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrycola94/pseuds/cherrycola94'>cherrycola94</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural, Supernatural: The Animation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Dean Winchester Character Study, Gen, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Normal Life, Other, POV Dean Winchester, Parent John Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:13:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382405</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrycola94/pseuds/cherrycola94</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester calls it a house, because it's certainly not a home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; John Winchester, Dean Winchester &amp; Original Character(s), Dean Winchester &amp; Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All The Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>au: sam lives with mary while dean and j*hn move around from place to place. there are no monsters here, save for the ones in their heads.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes Dean feels like the loneliest person in the world.</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="">
  <p> </p>
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>As a kid he dreams about freedom. Leaving the cracked plaster walls and chain links fences of whatever school he currently attended and driving down the highway in a brand-new red convertible. Singing along to Led Zeppelin and Bon Jovi as loudly and off-key as he wants. Sitting in sticky-table diners just off the interstate roads, smirking at people while carefully writing phone numbers on rough paper napkins. Getting free refills on bitter black coffee--</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>And then the bell rings, jolting him out of his recurring road trip fantasy. He slams his dented locker shut with a loud <em>BANG-click </em>and he stands in front of it for a second, studying the chipping blue paint and rusting exterior from an up-close perspective. Excited kids brush against his bright red backpack from behind, threatening to knock it off of his left shoulder. The chattering of <em>what-are-you-doings</em> and <em>think-I-can-joins</em> increase in their volume for a minute. Two minutes. Then, nothing. All the lockers are now shut, ugly shades of blue and green lining the stark halls. The exit doors stand open against their respective rotting doorstops, letting in a humid summer breeze that makes him sweat more than cool him down.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>Alone.</p>
    <p>Something turns over in the pit of Dean's stomach as he stares down the deserted hallway. A half-stocked vending machine at the end blinks lethargically at him from near the gym’s entrance and before he knows it he’s sticking three quarters from his jean pockets into it for a tiny pack of Skittles. <em>Treat yourself</em> a voice tells him as he pushes the buttons and watches the package fall from the second highest shelf.</p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Some girl clears her throat from behind him passive aggressively just after he scoops his snack out. Her fingertips drum the side of her right thigh impatiently and she looks a little annoyed. He doesn't care. He thinks he remembers her face from English class as the girl who called <em>Run, River</em> by Joan Didion a “trash book” during the class discussion. One of his favorite books, so naturally he never let go of her insult. He leaves her behind at the machine and doesn’t try to remember her name. If her name is remembered by him at some point later today, he’ll push it back down.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He walks to the exit, sun blindingly bright on the eyes. The colors outside are dizzying-- the yellows of dandelions too bright, the green grass looks artificial, the sky an unrealistic blue. Kids mill about the campus, skateboarding and sitting, biking and talking, laughing and chasing after each other. It gives him the same feeling he got in the pit of his stomach in the hallway. He can’t really put this feeling in words so instead of thinking about it, he pops the whole package of Skittles into his mouth and crams the wrapper back into his pocket. <em>Happy pills</em>, he thinks as he chews on them. It’s a stupid idea, but at least it’s his own idea.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The thought of people seeing him all by himself sickens him to some degree (<em>look at that loser! </em>He supposes they snicker when they see him all alone), so he slips on the headphones dangling around his neck. Dean presses PLAY on the Walkman he kept in his pocket despite the school’s strict no-device policy. His favorite rock mixtape plays softly in his ears, pleasant background noise.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He crosses the street past large mobs of sweaty kids wearing cheap deodorant and drugstore perfume. The universal smell of school in summertime. He shuffles along, getting closer to his small bus stop. Less kids live on his side of the town, so instead of those big plexiglass shelters you normally see at bus stops, the southside kids only get a simple sign on a streetlamp. If you don’t look closely enough you could miss it, the story of his life.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’d only been living here for eight months and he’s already been a little attached to the charm of this small town. He looks at the other kids at his bus stop-- people watching is an old habit of his. The kids smack Big League Chew loudly between half-spoken conversations and bright pink bubbles. Every time he accidentally makes eye contact with someone they lower their eyes, ignoring him. He decides to ignore them too and turns the volume of his Walkman up a little louder.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The bus going south arrives and it has a much nicer drive than the bus going north. Only the elite bunch of the schoolkids live by the lake-- no thanks to the atrocious house rates there-- so it’s much more peaceful. And much more empty. He has a whole row of beat-up plastic seats free to himself so he kicks his feet up onto them. The bus hums loudly as it drives by the family-owned shops lining the only street downtown. If he squints out the tinted windows he can see the calm surface of the glimmering sky-blue lake past park trees and restaurants.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Beautiful</em> is what Dean thinks every time he sees that pristine lake and the private sailboats docked on the port. <em>Bea-u-ti-ful.</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He gets off at the train station right in the middle of a cluster of kids. Hearing them talk so easily with one other grabs a fistful of his hair and drowns his head under a lake called pure loneliness. He turns up the volume, blasting The Who at a dangerously high volume; <em>I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth… </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It wasn’t like Dean <em>didn’t</em> want friends. On the contrary, he desperately wanted to communicate with someone. Anyone. But how can you make friends at a school that didn’t want you there? The rich city kids to the north and the rich<em>er</em> lakeside kids to the south all looked at him like some sort of foreign infection when he walked the halls. The teachers tried everything they could to keep him in the front row, as if they could see trouble pouring off of him in waves. And yeah, they were right. Teenage angst was an art he had slowly perfected over the countless moves from state to state. One reliable spot in Dean's ever-changing lifestyle was the ability to pick fights and then disappear from their lives without a trace. He likes to think that the broken noses and bloody teeth are impactful enough to the kids who needed to be shut down.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Since he was so fond of picking fights with the people who had a steel grip on the social hierarchy, the detention room was something like a second home to him (that’s depressing he chuckles humorlessly to himself at that). No matter what state, city, county, they were all somewhat the same. That odd about them. No windows, smaller desks for teacher and students, unused chalkboards which were either dusty from reminiscences of old chalk or scrubbed clean. Detention rooms are also a bit colder than the rest of the school and lit with white fluorescent tube lights. They were kept spotless by kids’ punishment tasks and janitors alike. In his opinion, all those elements made the room feel like a newly polished tomb. Music plays and he listens;<em> like a lamb to the slaughter… </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Back in reality, the second bus rolls over to the station as he thinks about the reliability of detention rooms. Dean hands over the rumpled transfer ticket he received from the first bus over to the second driver, and watches it spiral gracefully downward to the bottom of a trash bucket. Half of the rich kids load on behind him, the other half take a very short train ride to whatever faraway rich suburbia they lived in. He’d like to take the train sometime for fun, but in the end it just cost too much for a recreational activity. <em>An unnecessary expense! </em>his father would yell at him every time he wondered aloud about how the train's interior. His father was right, of course but it didn't stop Dean from thinking about how much nicer it would be.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The bus drops down a small hill and turns onto a road that looks like another world. Here, the mansions are big and spacious with trees like flagpoles in the front lawns. He looks out the window and spies crystal chandeliers through floor-to-ceiling windows and hand woven tapestries hanging on walls. Plush carpets and brand-new TV models. Two cars are apparently the minimum on the driveways here, freshly waxed and out on display for neighbors to see. An unspoken rule. A contest of money between them all. He doesn’t mean to, but he finds himself calculating the cost of all these unnecessary items and he ends up stewing in his hate of the whole damn neighborhood of those stupid rich suburban people. He feels himself getting angrier at how unfair everything is. His father, working himself half to bone while these people have different cars for each day of the week. He turns up his Walkman’s volume. Kansas sings <em>don’t you cry no more</em> at him harmoniously, but Dean hasn't cried in what feels like years. When he starts to think he's forgotten how to cry he glares at himself in the mirror until his anger washes it away. </p>
  <p>And then he shoves all those feelings down-- way down.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Teenagers slowly get off the bus like watching sand trickling through a closed fist. Soon, he’s the last one left at the back. His head feels a little heavy-- he always feels a little tired after the second bus ride-- and he gets off at the last stop.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dean waits at the light, turning down the volume on his Walkman. Ever since a kid at his last school got hit in the parking lot by a van, he’s grown to be a bit more careful at crosswalks. Unmarked trucks and company vans clog the intersection, making deliveries back and forth. He taps his foot while staring down the red light. Yellow for a few seconds, then a glorious shade of green. He looks both ways, and starts walking down the street.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The air over here smells less like school time summer days and more like a factory. The street Dean lives on (<em>currently </em>lives on, he corrects himself) is the unofficial barrier of the industrial part of town and the lower middle-class living zone. Cookie-cutter townhomes sit dejectedly in rectangle formations along an unmarked road, a sad single apartment building can be seen rising above everything a few blocks down. It looks out of place here. This road doesn’t feel homey to him-- he doesn’t think it feels homey to anyone who's seen this area-- but he’d rather take the loud noise of the cargo trains rattling down the track by his window at five in the morning over those houses with five extra guest bedrooms and stupid twinkly chandeliers.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The key turns the lock and the door’s open. Dean kicks his shoes off in the mudroom and examines the fallen sticky note on the stairs leading up to the living room and kitchen.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>Back at 11.</em>
  </p>
  <p>"Dad, ever the poet," Dean says out loud but then calls himself stupid because nobody could hear him anyway.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He gets the shower running and lets the cold water wash away the sweat. He stares at the showerhead-- every year showerheads get closer and closer to being eye level with him. His brown hair looks black in the mirror when he steps out, and it’s wet. It drips water onto the freshly washed tee he tugs on before going downstairs but he doesn’t care. In this heat, it’ll be gone in a flash.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>My Final Informal English Essay</em>. Dean scratches out onto the paper in messy cursive. <em>June 1995</em>. He adds in the upper left corner. He expected his teacher to let them down easy this close to the end of the year, but he’d pulled this last writing assignment out of his hat. Not only was it supposed to be in by tomorrow, but it had to be about something <em>personal </em>to the writer. Something deep. He highly doubted his teacher would actually read the papers, because adding them to the students’ grade this close to the end of the year sounded like a lot of unnecessary work. Maybe it was more of like a test of responsibility? Even though the assignment’s timing made no sense, a small part of him thought <em>what the hell</em>. He liked writing, contrary to what everyone else seemed to think when they saw him clad in his dad's old leather jacket with cheap headphones hanging around his neck.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dean thinks about how personal he should make the essay. He doubts he’d come back to this place for senior year and see all the semi-familiar faces again. He might as well write a little bit about himself before he left, to leave behind some sort of impression on someone.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So even though he’s in the mood to write something-- an ugly pencil in hand, a glass of orange juice beside him, stack of half-used and reused papers sitting on the table-- the proper words escape him. They rest on the tip of his tongue and he gets annoyed by his brain’s unwillingness to cooperate with him.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>As Dean’s trying to think, he looks past the half-drawn blinds and out the kitchen window at the street. Someone dribbles a basketball in their driveway, but other than that the street is empty. It feels… lonely. The sun beats down heat more intensely as thin clouds part, like the world’s telling it that it wants to be burnt to a crisp.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His stomach growls loudly at him before he tries to think about his essay again. His father won’t be back until late, so he can eat whatever he wants for dinner. He can make whatever he wants. Total control over his environment, himself being his only warden and caretaker.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His hands and feet move before he can think, walking to the kitchen. He takes out a large Ziploc bag he filled with a goldmine of stolen sugar packets from fast-food restaurants his father stops at while on the road. He’s in the mood for something sweeter, and the first dessert that comes to his mind is an apple pie mug cake. He checks the cabinets and fridge and thankfully they have the right amount of ingredients. Dean's body goes into autopilot as he measures everything out and sticks the mug in the microwave. He burns his tongue while taking the first bite, but the cake is so moist and fluffy he can’t help but burn himself again.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>After eating the cake with relish (he snorts a little at the thought of eating cake with<em> actual</em> relish) he rummages through a couple of boxes for his small book collection. Maybe reading would give him some ideas? Lo and behold, he finds a beat-up copy of Dune. The book was bought for only a dollar at a garage sale when he was in middle school as a reward for being helpful. The cracked spine, formerly a striking black was now a gentle white from being read and reread. Almost all pages past the first few chapters have creases on them where they were dog-eared in the past. He promises himself he’ll read it before bedtime and keeps it on the stairs going up to the bedrooms.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dean reads Dune until 10:53 when the sound of a car driving up to the house shocks him off the page and back into his body. He listens, thud thud thud thud thud, to the footsteps climbing up the first set of stairs. Thud thud thud from the kitchen. The footsteps don’t sound aggressive, so he relaxes a bit. A beep from the microwave, the clink of the dishware he set out for his father. The sink runs after about fifteen minutes of eating. His father ate relatively quickly, which reads as sobriety. He relaxes a bit more but covers his body with his blanket to fake being asleep (better to be safe than sorry). Now the footsteps travel up the creaking stairs and into the bathroom, where the showerhead squeaks to life. The sound of water coming out of it reminds him of radio static for some reason. 11:26. 11:27. It’s quite early for his father's return to the house, which alludes to him not going out for a weeknight drink. The theory of sobriety stands, a bit stronger.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He waits for the sound of dragging feet and the tired groan of the master bedroom’s door before he lets out a sigh of relief. He stays under the protection of the thin blanket before his English paper’s topic suddenly bursts free in his mind. Sentences start forming, phrases he actually likes, so he soundlessly slips out of bed and tiptoes to his desk. The door to his bedroom is locked-- force of habit-- and he hopes the sound of his backpack zipper isn’t as loud to his father’s ears as it is to his. In his newfound inspiration he knocks over a small plastic cup of pens.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His blood runs cold. He counts to twenty, frozen. He listens for the blankets rustling angrily, then the stomping feet, the angry questioning, the fists banging on the door, lock turning from the outside, feeling like a dead man on the inside, door bouncing twice against the doorframe, heart stopping once in his chest, leather scraping against the loops of his father’s jeans because he couldn’t bother to change into actual pajamas before heading off to bed--</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But none of it comes. So instead of remembering how the routine goes when his father’s a little more attentive or a little more angry, Dean decides to suck all the bad feelings back into his heart and keep it there.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>After he arranges everything for writing, he turns the lamp on with a quiet <em>click</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>When you spend your whole life running away, it’s hard to slow down when you need to.</em> He writes under the title.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He taps his pencil against the curve of his bottom lip, a habit he'd picked up back in elementary school. It might've seemed a bit odd to another person, but it helped him think better.</p>
  <p>
    <em>When you want to slow down, it takes a lot more than just hitting the brakes. You have to know where they are, and you have to know exactly when to step on them. Other kids don’t really have to think about this type of stuff, which sets me apart from them in a way. I don’t want to be set apart. It leaves me lonely.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So far so good, no spelling mistakes yet. Dean inhales deeply (and quietly) before continuing. <em>So I write a lot about loneliness, because I feel lonely pretty much all the time. So it comes easy to me.</em> He looks over his shoulder every ten words or so. He listens hard for any threatening noises, a force of habit. He continues to write in his slow, looping cursive until every ounce of creativity is leached from his brain and out on paper. It feels good, having the idea gone. Then he edits, making the language sound more flowery and poetic. After he's done, he packs everything up as quietly as humanly possible and crawls back into bed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dean sleeps dreamlessly tonight. He sleeps dreamless most of the time because the world told him that he couldn’t afford the luxury of hope.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The next morning Dean rises at 5:04 along with the train by his window. Coffee (just black) slides down his throat. He packs a banana and eats it on the bus while listening to The Clash on his second favorite rock mixtape. He chews mint gum throughout his first two classes; statistics and biology. It's against the rules, but nobody takes the time to bat an eye. He wolfs down three granola bars for lunch in the hallway by his locker and the vending machine he visited yesterday. Everyone looks away from him as they walk by him.</p>
  <p>Like he doesn’t exist.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>For his spare period Dean sits in the hallway outside the library, a borrowed book in his hand. He’s far from the unwelcoming stares the librarians give him, but close enough to check it back in after he’s finished. He ignores everyone.</p>
  <p>English is last. His father's jacket sticks to his arms with sweat and he feels <em>hot</em>, but he doesn’t dare take it off. As Dean strolls into the class he wears his <em>I’m-too-good-to-be-here face</em>. He rolls his eyes, pretending not to care about all the thinking he’d put into his essay as he hands in five papers and sits in his seat at the back left corner. Mr. Jackson tells them to do whatever they want for the rest of the class, just as long as they don’t burn the building down. The few brave souls who brought devices into class could even use them now, if they’d like to. He pulls out his Walkman and presses play. As the Scorpions serenade him, he closes his eyes and shuts everyone out.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The bell rings and he’s kept behind, maybe for a nice trip to Friday afternoon detention. The class is painfully empty and Dean can't help but feel his heartrate quicken.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You’ve got talent,” Mr. Jackson says, folding his hands on his desk. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Uh. Thanks,” Dean replies. His voice sounds a little raspy so he clears his throat with a small cough.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’m not kidding,” Mr. Jackson taps the five pages he handed in. “Edit this a bit, and you could enter this into a competition. Maybe even the state level if we get lucky.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“That’s nice of you to say,”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Would you like to enter the summertime competition?” Mr. Jackson looks eager and bright. It’s hard to let him down like this.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I don’t think I can,” Dean says slowly, trying not to sound like he cared. “My dad’s thinking of moving again.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You just moved here,” Mr. Jackson’s doing the thing where his eyebrows look like they’re trying to combine forces. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A clenched fist, a clenched jaw. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>An apology with the eyes, a guilty look. “I’m sorry,”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Silence. One minute. Thirteen seconds.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Well, I hope you have a good weekend,”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’ll see you when you come for your final grades,” It sounds like a question but Dean doesn't know the answer.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“‘Bye,”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Goodbye,” And as Dean's about to walk out the door; “I hope you consider entering a competition in the future.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He knows he can’t. His father would forbid it and call it a waste of time, writing for nothing more than a trophy or the opportunity of a thank-you speech to an audience. Dean could be working during all that time.</p>
  <p>So despite the shadow of his father living in his head, he’d like to imagine he himself chooses to not enter.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"there are no monsters here, save for the ones in their heads." god i'm such a drama queen lmfao</p><p>this is practice for descriptive writing (about how i got home back in my freshman year of highschool when i knew almost nobody) but after writing some of this i thought "hey if you squint at it and make it angstier it's dean winchester" so there you have this piece</p></blockquote></div></div>
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